Enough.

Can you first indulge me with a brief description of my morning? I'd appreciate it.

9:00 am: The plumber I forgot was coming arrived and I answered the door in my most unflattering postpartum pajamas, no bra, and hair that added about four inches to my height. Then the problem I had called him in for mysteriously disappeared. Why does that always happen?

10:40 am: I had an appointment at eleven, and a few minutes before I needed to leave the house with Shira I went to the place I always keep my keys (and by always I really do mean always), except that they weren't there. My brain was then flooded with a memory of my leaving them in the stroller the day before, and then another memory came--that of my lovely husband putting the stroller away in the car for me. The locked car. With my keys and stroller in it. And my ergo. And my sling. But no matter, I had an umbrella (yes, it was pouring)! And a baby wrap intended for tiny babies! I squeezed Shira in and was out the door.

12:00 pm (20 minute walk away from home): Then my umbrella broke.

So we got very wet, me and Shira. She was a good sport about the whole thing, even falling asleep on the wet walk home. The best part about this story is that none of this can even come close to stepping on my mood. My appointment was a chance for me to discuss a possible new career possibility, one that doesn't involve me staying in my graduate program and finishing my dissertation. And it was fabulous! (I'm being a bit secretive about the details here because I haven't actually said out loud that I'm leaving my PhD*. Did I just say that? Anyway, these details will come soon).

After my meeting, I stole Matt away from the office for a quick pizza lunch on campus (I had a Mediterranean salad pizza and it was delicious). It was a lovely twenty minute lunch where I was able to tell Matt absolutely everything I learned about my potential new career path. So there I was, all excited and making plans for the future that didn't make me shake with dread (does dread cause shaking? For me it does), and Matt said: "It's too bad you didn't have the confidence two years ago to make this change."

That's what this has all been about, I'm beginning to realize. I didn't have the confidence to admit that I had made a mistake in continuing with a graduate program I wasn't happy with, and now here I am two, three (or four) years later and I've wasted all this precious time! Enough of that, I'm moving on. Maybe I've lost some years to that particular path (though certainly not all that time was wasted, since I met Matt on the first day of graduate school and then we made these two kids--you may have heard of them?), but no more. Maybe my little revelation falls into the category of the obvious, but for me, this is big. Enough already.

*Translation: I haven't yet told my mother.